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The Bark scale is a psychoacoustical scale proposed by
Subdivision of the audible frequency range into critical bands
" ''The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America'', Volume 33, Issue 2, p. 248 (1961) One definition of the term is "...a frequency scale on which equal distances correspond with perceptually equal distances. Above about 500 Hz this scale is more or less equal to a logarithmic frequency axis. Below 500 Hz the Bark scale becomes more and more linear." The scale ranges from 1 to 24 and corresponds to the first 24
Since the direct measurements of the critical bands are subject to error, the values in this table have been generously rounded.
In his letter "Subdivision of the Audible Frequency Range into Critical Bands", Zwicker states:
Sonification seminar – 10/9/03
, ''CCRMA.Stanford.edu''.
:
Smith and Abel – Bark and ERB Bilinear Transforms (1999)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bark Scale Scales Psychoacoustics 1961 in science 1961 in Germany
Eberhard Zwicker
Karl Eberhard Zwicker (15 January 1924, in Öhringen, Germany – 22 November 1990, in Icking)
was a German acoustics scientist and full professor at the Technical University of Munich.
Zwicker studied physics and electrical engineering at the U ...
in 1961. It is named after Heinrich Barkhausen
Heinrich Georg Barkhausen (2 December 1881 – 20 February 1956), born in Bremen, was a German physicist.
Growing up in a patrician Bremen family, he showed interest in natural sciences from an early age. He studied at the Technical Univer ...
who proposed the first subjective measurements of loudness.Zwicker, E. (1961),Subdivision of the audible frequency range into critical bands
" ''The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America'', Volume 33, Issue 2, p. 248 (1961) One definition of the term is "...a frequency scale on which equal distances correspond with perceptually equal distances. Above about 500 Hz this scale is more or less equal to a logarithmic frequency axis. Below 500 Hz the Bark scale becomes more and more linear." The scale ranges from 1 to 24 and corresponds to the first 24
critical band In audiology and psychoacoustics the concept of critical bands, introduced by Harvey Fletcher in 1933 and refined in 1940, describes the frequency bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth of the "auditory filter" created by the cochlea, the sense or ...
s of hearing
Hearing, or auditory perception, is the ability to perceive sounds
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psycholog ...
.
It is related to, but somewhat less popular than, the mel scale
The mel scale (after the word ''melody'')
is a perceptual scale of pitches judged by listeners to be equal in distance from one another. The reference point between this scale and normal frequency measurement is defined by assigning a perce ...
, a perceptual scale of pitches judged by listeners to be equal in distance from one another.
Bark scale critical bands
Since the direct measurements of the critical bands are subject to error, the values in this table have been generously rounded.
In his letter "Subdivision of the Audible Frequency Range into Critical Bands", Zwicker states:
"These bands have been directly measured in experiments on the threshold for complex sounds, on masking, on the perception of phase, and most often on the loudness of complex sounds. In all these phenomena, the critical band seems to play an important role. It must be pointed out that the measurements taken so far indicate that the critical bands have a certain width, but that their position on the frequency scale is not fixed; rather, the position can be changed continuously, perhaps by the ear itself."Thus the important attribute of the Bark scale is the width of the critical band at any given frequency, not the exact values of the edges or centers of any band.
Conversions
To convert a frequency ''f'' (Hz) into Bark use: : or (Traunmüller, 1990) : or (Wang, Sekey & Gersho, 1992), ''CCRMA.Stanford.edu''.
See also
*Luminosity function
A luminous efficiency function or luminosity function represents the average spectral sensitivity of human visual perception of light. It is based on subjective judgements of which of a pair of different-colored lights is brighter, to descri ...
, which describes the average sensitivity of the human eye to ''light'' of different wavelengths.
* Fletcher–Munson curves
An equal-loudness contour is a measure of sound pressure level, over the frequency spectrum, for which a listener perceives a constant loudness when presented with pure steady tones. The unit of measurement for loudness levels is the phon and i ...
* Equivalent rectangular bandwidth
The equivalent rectangular bandwidth or ERB is a measure used in psychoacoustics, which gives an approximation to the bandwidths of the filters in human hearing, using the unrealistic but convenient simplification of modeling the filters as rectang ...
, the ERB scale
* Critical bands In audiology and psychoacoustics the concept of critical bands, introduced by Harvey Fletcher in 1933 and refined in 1940, describes the frequency bandwidth of the "auditory filter" created by the cochlea, the sense organ of hearing within the inne ...
References
External links
*Smith and Abel – Bark and ERB Bilinear Transforms (1999)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bark Scale Scales Psychoacoustics 1961 in science 1961 in Germany